Gingrich: Dems Teach The Unemployed To Prefer Government-Funded Poverty Over Honest Work

August 12, 2010 11:54 am ET

In an email to supporters yesterday, Newt Gingrich blamed Democrats for high unemployment and argued that "the extension of unemployment benefits has given people a perverse incentive to stay on unemployment rather than accept a job." Gingrich cynically warns that Democrats are making jobless Americans "get so used to being unproductive that they are willing to accept welfare indefinitely instead of taking a job." Gingrich is just the latest in a long line of Republicans to attack the unemployed for political gain. In reality, unemployment checks average about $300 per week, and cherry-picked anecdotes about "indefinite welfare" ignore the real source of high unemployment: a severe economic crisis brought about by Republican mismanagement.